


The shadow you cast

by FantasyFailures



Series: The blur between Thedas and Earth. [1]
Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Drabble, F/M, How Do I Tag, Modern Girl in Thedas, One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-31
Updated: 2019-10-31
Packaged: 2021-01-15 16:04:32
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 643
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21256031
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FantasyFailures/pseuds/FantasyFailures
Summary: 'There, as the sun slid easily down the horizon, bathing the room in warm, rich light, I wondered if I might be at home. I wondered if here, with him, could be my home.'A girl initially from Earth ponders the meaning of truth, of love, and of home.





	The shadow you cast

The earliest thing I can remember, when I truly think back to it, straining every nerve in my brain to summon forth the deepest part of my memory, is being held.

My grandmother, I think, wrapped in a colourful shawl, and I was wrapped just the same in a thick blanket. The background, the context, even her face, all blur in the memory. I can't quite bring them into focus. Maybe I'd have liked to. But now, calling that rainbow shawl and warm hold to my mind is the first real tie I have to my life. My other life. The first life, the one I was maybe supposed to live- but then again, maybe not.

'Is it fate, or chance? I can never tell.'

I spend too much time thinking. My mind seems unable to be calmed, unable to be tamed, and I suppose I might have once been content with that. Thinking, before, was not a bad thing, but now with thoughts come memories. I don't want to remember, but neither do I want to forget. 

I wish I could just be.

I think to the spirits, to Cole, recalling their easy acceptance of what is or what could be, as though almost anything is real, if you want it to be. 

Love is real. I met her. 

The fade was not what I thought it'd be. It did not manifest as a murky green nothingness, an empty void of the unreal. For me, the first night I fell asleep, it was the back garden of my childhood home. The swingset, the uneven stone slabs of the path, and the tree my Dad never got around to cutting down like my mom had asked. I saw them, felt them, smoothed my hand over the rough stonework of the wall of the shed, and it was real. 

It changed each night. Perhaps sometimes it was the garden, and other times my school library. It was my bedroom rarely, though seeing the framed photos on the wall always made the image shiver, faltering in its projection. But it was always frighteningly real. 

I had been here for a month, perhaps, when she came. My Aunt's home seemed to glow with her presence, this faceless spirit that shone like dying embers- all calmed fire and wistful smoke, her form tinted with soft reds and pale orange. She did not speak, and neither did I, but I knew why she had come. 

I had fallen in love, despite all efforts to avoid such a thing. 

I wonder if it was an inevitability. Solas, or the Dread Wolf, or the Trickster, Betrayer- Fen'Harel- may have always owned my heart. Though when I now think back to The Game I see nothing but cold caricatures of my new family, I had thought myself as loving him then, too. He was not the man I had expected him to be in some ways, but he might just be the most real thing I have seen so far. The way I feel is real, at least, and in an ever shifting state of untruths, that is what I cling to. 

His heartbeat is thrumming beneath my ear, and I can hear it. Steady and strong, much like Solas himself, it has lulled me into this pensive state of thoughts and thinking. Of remembering. 

We are curled together in my quarters, beneath the large glass window that faces the courtyard of Skyhold. Thick rugs and pillows cushion us from the cold stone, and my head rests on his chest, tucked neatly beneath his chin. 

This world--Thedas--was unfamiliar and unforgiving, but his arms were not. 

There, as the sun slid easily down the horizon, bathing the room in warm, rich light, I wondered if I might be at home. I wondered if here, with him, could be my home.

**Author's Note:**

> The Dragon Age universe, and all associated characters and games, belong to Bioware. They do not belong to me. Thank you for reading!


End file.
